By Kristy Ackerman Kevitt January 31, 2011 - 10:47am

"We have to believe in free will -- we've got no choice."
- Isaac Bashevis Singer

Domino's Pizza has launched a new school lunch program called "Smart Slice."

http://www.dairyherdnetwork.com/NLA_Tue.aspx?oid=1300148&tid=Archive

Smart and Slice (of pizza) in the same sentence?

Pizza is now the number one entree served in American school-lunch programs. Twenty five percent of America's schools include pizza on their menus.

Is pizza a health food, and why are American kids experiencing an escalating obesity epidemic?

One slice of Domino's Smart Pizza will contain 327 calories, 16.4 grams of fat, and 31 milligrams of cholesterol.

One medium apple (weighing 125 grams) contains 74 calories, 0.45 grams of fat, and no cholesterol.

If you want to shed one pound of fat from your body weight, you would have to burn 3500 calories.

Compare one school child to another. Student A eats an apple each day and student B eats just one slice of Domino's Pizza each day. After one year, the pizza eater would supply his or her body with 92,345 more calories than the apple eater. That represents 26 pounds of body fat.

There are 5.38 milligrams of cholesterol contained in one medium-sized slice of cooked bacon. In one year, the school child eating the Domino's Pizza would consume the equivalent cholesterol contained in 2,103 slices of bacon. That's the equivalent of nearly 6 slices of bacon per day. The apple eater would ingest zero dietary cholesterol.

During that same year, the pizza eater would eat 12.8 pounds more fat than the apple eater. Picture a small French poodle weighing 12.8 pounds. Now picture the same sized ball of fat surgically implanted to the Domino's Pizza eater's tummy.

Weigh the evidence. Do you consider pizza a smart food choice to be served in all of our nation's schools?

- taken from Robert Cohen's NotMilk.com article Jan 28, 2010